Colombian tropical town Villanueva's popular library is an example of non pretentious architecture gone right. Projected by Alejandro Piñol, Germán Ramírez, Miguel Torres and Carlos Meza, it was built with local materials and workers (some former members of guerrilla groups), low budget, and designed to adapt harmoniously with the surroundings, need low maintenance and provide great indoor weather.

The building -via Plataforma Arquitectura- is made of two different volumes: a big one containing the actual library on the first floor and other services such as theater, offices, toilets in the second; and a side corridor that acts like a public plaza.

Each volume is constructed with different materials: the big one with blocks of stones collected from a neighboring riviera, and the second with pine wood from a sustainably managed forest. Both are permeable, allowing natural ventilation to get in.

The stone cube holds five metal 'boxes' in which the different rooms are placed.

"The exterior image projects a monumental building due to the context-scale, but at the same time it shows a simple object, an homage to everyday artisan objects, in other words a modern building constructed for and from the location," say the architects.